


Madness

by just_a_dram



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Family, Guilt, Post-Canon, Secret Relationship, Shame
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-04
Updated: 2016-01-04
Packaged: 2018-05-11 18:27:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5637274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/just_a_dram/pseuds/just_a_dram
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It all changes when Arya returns, their old roles feeling more present than before, and the guilt seeps in, poisoning what was good.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Madness

It’s when Arya returns, when Sansa watches the two of them together, being as playful as she remembers from when they were children, and a twinge of jealousy makes her catalog every look, touch, and deep laugh between the two of them that she knows in her heart what she and Jon have been doing is wrong.

It makes her jealous to think of the possibility of Jon and Arya like that, the way Sansa is with him after the household has gone to sleep. Her legs wrapped around his narrow waist, his body rubbing against hers with every solid stroke. It makes her sick to imagine them such. Turns her stomach so that she can’t meet her sister’s eye.

 _They are brother and sister_. It doesn’t matter that Jon is truly a Targaryen and a cousin, the son of her aunt and not a half-brother. It’s the old relations that matter, and she sees that clearly now, as she watches Arya jab Jon in the side with her elbow, making him slosh his ale over the thick rim of his tankard.

It’s their history that makes her draw her hand back, when he covers it with his own–strong and reassuring–as soon as she is left alone at table with him, Arya having stumbled off for her chambers on wobbly legs. Sansa jerks her hand too hard to mistake the movement for anything other than displeasure, and Jon’s mouth twitches, uncertainty replacing the soft smile in his eyes from a moment earlier.

If he would press, grab for her hand once more, and hold it fast with his superior strength, it would make the rejection easier, but he places his hands in his lap, respectfully folded without threat of a repeat attempt at overcoming her defenses. Jon is all goodness, a surprise in this bleak world, and somehow she’s certain that she lured him into this madness through her own wickedness.

“We mustn’t, Jon.” It is just a whisper, but in the empty hall with his questioning gaze upon her, it feels much louder.

He blinks, his eyes darting over her as if the meaning behind her statement is hidden about her person, tucked in her dove grey wool skirts or behind her fur ruff. She is expert at keeping things hidden, but whether or not he understands what bubbles beneath the surface of her calm, he agrees. “Of course.”

Since they began, every night she’s been pulled into his solid arms and his high bed, even when she meant to tell him no because her moon’s blood was upon her, but then he looked so handsome and his breath was so warm against her neck that she forgot all her intentions to warn him off. If the uncharacteristic nature of her refusal tonight surprises him or disappoints, he doesn’t let on, knowing something of diplomacy himself.

Instead, he offers to walk her to her solar. She allows it, hating to be parted from him, desiring yet one more minute alone with him and then another, in spite of her fresh conviction. It is a mistake to let him walk by her side, her arm through his and his footfalls heavy beside her whispering leather slippers. In the dim light of flickering torches, she realizes halfway to her door that she’ll invite him inside and her resolution to be a woman her lady mother could be proud of will be cast aside in favor of pleasure and comfort and _Jon_.

She stops him with a hand to his chest. With her fingers pressed against his doublet, she swears she can feel his heart beating a war beat underneath.

“We mustn’t,” she says without raising her eyes.

“It’s all right, Sansa. Another night then.”

“No.”

“No,” he repeats back, his deep voice reverberating through her trembling hand.

His chest expands with some blooming emotion, and she knows she must be clear now to lessen both their suffering. There must be no nightly question of whether she will join him. “It is wrong the way we have been carrying on. You must see that, Jon.”

“Yes.” His actions don’t match the simple, painful consensus, as one hand settles on the rise of her hip and the other slips into her hair to cradle the base of her head. “I’ll make it right. I’ll tell Arya and we’ll find a way to tell Rickon together.” His lips are close enough to kiss, when he murmurs a promise she wishes she didn’t want so desperately to hear. “We can be married as quick as a raven can fly to and from King’s Landing.”

He hasn’t understood at all. Good, honorable Jon’s only thought is to protect her own honor, lost long ago. “No, Jon.” She gives him a push. There’s no force behind it, but he dutifully steps back, his hand left to dangle at his side. “You misunderstand me. _We_ are at an end. You and I.”

His throat rolls above the clasp of his furs and she wants to put her hand there where his beard scratches. It is with Jon that she first felt comfortable touching, exploring places that never held any allure before, learning his body and allowing herself to be touched and learned just as thoroughly. The next man won’t be as gentle. They never are. Only Jon.

“Have I…” He is the picture of Father, when he frowns and clasps his hands behind his back. The resemblance should have stopped her from the start, but there was never any guilt. Not even after the first night, when she expected to feel it most keenly in the light of day. At least he had the decency to act flustered at first. “Did I offend? Last night?”

When he was between her thighs and the noises his lips and tongue made against her turned her pink from her breasts to her ears and made her slick with want? “No.” It was lovely. “But it will be the last time. We’re _wrong_.”

He shakes his head, causing a hank of his dark hair to fall over his brow. He pushes it back with a shuddering huff. “Something has changed,” he insists, and it has. Surely without the confusion of sex muddying the waters, he’ll feel it and be left only to feel shame about taking her to his bed. “I’ve done something. You must tell me what it is, Sansa.”

“Nothing of real import ever did change. I am Sansa Stark, daughter of Lord and Lady Stark and you are Jon Snow. You don’t mind me saying it, do you?”

He rubs his chin, his beard giving an audible rasp, but he says nothing, seemingly rendered mute by her pronouncement. No one calls him Snow anymore. Not since the Great Battle.

“I simply see how it should have been between us from the start. Brother and sister, Jon. That is what we were raised to be. What Father wanted for us.” When they were reunited, Jon was so familiar, such a sweet comfort, and yet, so many name days had passed since last she saw him and he looked so little like the lanky boy that rode off to the Wall that sisterly affection was too easily overwhelmed by old romantic nonsense she thought left behind on the steps of the Great Sept of Baelor. “Do you understand?” she asks, taking the stern tone she is sometimes forced to adopt with Rickon when he will eat naught but preserves or insists upon staying up until the wee hours of the morn. “No more.”

He could argue. He could bluster and shout, but he gives a stiff nod and in his frozen confusion, she turns her back on him in a sweep of skirts before she gives in to the urge to cup his face in her hands and kiss away his sadness.

Distance is what they need. Her feet provide it.


End file.
